1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to financial transactions and more particularly to facilitating financial transactions over a network.
2. Related Art
In online financial transactions, customers may use third-party payment service providers to pay for products and services through electronic communications with online merchants over electronic networks, such as the Internet. The third-party payment providers provide an infra-structure, software and services that enable member customers and member merchants to make and receive payments. The payments may be credit card payments, electronic bank transfers or other payment techniques offered by the third-party payment provider. One payment technique may be transferring money from an account held by the payment provider, as opposed to transferring credit from an outside credit card company or an outside financial institution or bank. Transferring money held in the payment provider account may be cheaper for a user because it avoids certain transaction fees or interest payments that may be incurred when transferring money or making a payment from an outside credit or banking institution.
Typically, transactions are between a member consumer and a member merchant. However, member consumers may also transfer money to other consumers, and some consumers may operate small-businesses, for example selling or reselling things on an on-line auction system. Users with payment provider accounts may or may not have a sufficient balance to make certain transactions at a particular time. In that situation, if the only accepted funding source is a money or bank account, then the user may not be able to bid and acquire the desired item. This may also hurt the seller, as the seller may be missing out on a potential sale or another bidder to drive up the selling price of the item.